(urth) Thea's Identity

[DAVID STOCKHOFF]

>________________________________
> From: Thomas Bitterman <tom at bitterman.net>
>To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> 
>Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 9:33 AM
>Subject: Re: (urth) Thea's Identity
> 
>
>
>On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 9:56 PM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at clueland.com> wrote:
>
>On Fri, April 19, 2013 10:21, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:
>>>> From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>>
>>>>>As another bonus, the Autarch is the "self-ruled", or, more
>>>>> colloquially, "the boss of
>>>>>himself".  Who actually does what the Autarch tells them?  The servants
>>>>> of the House
>>>>>Absolute, and the army.  If both the servants and the soldiers are
>>>>> (pretty much) clones,
>>>>>then he is literally just the boss of himself. It's the type of joke
>>>>> that feels unfunny
>>>>>in just the right way for Wolfe to have made it.
>>
>>Meh. The servants seem to have no trouble maintaining loyalty to the new
>>Autachs, 
>
>
>The new Autarch is a (semi-)clone of the old one, hence closely related to the servants.
>
>---And presumably when the witches (?) clone soldiers they prefer uniformity and low cost and when they clone more significant persons they tweak the mix a bit, always optimizing. The seraglio could provide material without providing whole clones. 
>
>Note neither Appian nor Severian is as tall as an exultant but they are not short either. On first read I took this as the usual signal of "half-royal" birth, and I think that is the intended reading, later subverted into something more complex. I assume the exultants are somewhat like hothouse flowers, bred for one thing but losing other things a genome-gathering project could re-introduce.
>
>
>
>
>and it would make the Torturers, Witches, Librarians, and
>>Stewards curious exceptions to the auto-cloning rule, as we know they get
>>at least some of their number from outside the House and Citadel. 
>
>
>With the exception of Severian, do any of the above ever become Autarch?  I was under the impression it was always household staff.
>
>---There is a passage in which Severian essentially lists the sorts of people in his memories; have to check but I don't think so. I hadn't known Stewards were their own order vs being part of the House; have to check that too.
>
>
> 
>
>It would
>>bring into question why the autarch always has a great man soldiers but
>>never enough, and it would fubar the basis for your identity intrigue on
>>the raft.
>>
>
>
>Cloning and maintaining soldiers in readiness for battle is not cheap.  And military leaders always complain about not having enough soldiers, no matter how many they have.
>
>
>---Especially when they are poorly led and supplied. The campaign against the Ascians does not appear to be marked by its brilliance, either tactical or logistical.
>
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